Thank you to guest blogger  Gail Lamarche for recapping Lexblog’s webinar, Find Your Voice – Speak With a Purpose , featuring Faith Pincus.

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Faith Pincus
Faith Pincus delivered part two in a series of public speaking webinars on behalf of Lexblog. You can read the highlights of the first webinar, Find Your Voice, Speak with a Purpose, here. In today’s webinar, Faith shared the best and easiest ways to organize your presentation, how to write catchy introductions and how to make your conclusions memorable. She began with several quotes which exemplify the power of language, including the famous quote from Martin Luther King “I have a dream.” That’s what a successful speech can do — statements made by speakers 50 years ago still have an impact today. In developing your speech, think of the “AMI” methodology = Audience (your speech is about them, not you); Message (develop the purpose of your speech and write it down); and, Image (it’s not just about how you look, but how you deliver). Five Steps to Organize Your Presentation

  1. Define the Purpose or Thesis. Write down what you are trying to accomplish and then say it out loud. If you need to take a breath while saying, it’s too long.
  2. Gather Supporting Materials. Use a variety of supporting materials that will help you explain the concept you are trying to teach or discuss. As you go through the materials, think about different ways you can illustrate your point. Why use supporting materials? It will help you connect with audience and will “humanize” your topic in a way your audience can absorb. Use facts, quotes, cases, statistics, interviews, articles, deposition testimony, even role playing. Stories are huge – humans relate to stories and are very helpful in communicating complex ideas.
  3. Determine Top Three Points. After you gather the supporting materials and have determined your purpose, look at it all and find the top three points only.  Why just three?  Research shows that people remember and absorb odd numbers.  All the information you gathered can be broken-down into those three points.
  4. Determine the Organizational Pattern. You can deliver your speech in several different ways, including chronological or sequential order, it depends on the topic. Lawyers often use a “problems/solutions” order or even a “compare/contrast” order taking one idea and comparing to the other.
  5. Create An Outline. Do NOT write your presentation out as a speech. Most people are not capable of reading a presentation word for word and then delivering it in conversation style with enough finesse to have impact. You are not the President of the United States with a teleprompter. Best practice is to create it in outline format, maybe even in full sentence format and practice out loud to see what works and what doesn’t. When you write it down, it may sound brilliant but when you start saying it out loud, you trip over it or some sentences or it may not make sense. As you practice and become more familiar with the presentation, reduce the full sentence outline to a key word outline.  The key word outline is meant as a prompt to remind you what you want to talk about. Ask if the outline accomplishes your purpose (Step 1).

Create Catchy Introductions The purpose of an introduction is to grab your audience’s attention, peak their curiosity and interest and connect with them. The introduction should clarify your purpose and preview your main points. Connect with the audience the entire time with good eye contact; it will boost your credibility. You only have a few moments to make a first impression and establish you are credible. Don’t fumble papers and NEVER read your introduction, in fact memorize it. Make sure it’s short – in fact five minutes or less is good. No one wants to listen to a 20-minute introduction.  It shouldn’t take that long to introduce your presentation and grab your audience’s attention. What goes in an introduction? Faith uses great quotes. You can also use statistics, anecdotes, stories, humor, rhetorical questions, “raise your hand if” questions.” Faith cautions that if you are going to use humor, make sure it’s funny, non-offensive and somehow related to your topic. Test the humor by running it by someone that doesn’t have to laugh at your jokes.  What doesn’t go into an introduction?  Statement like “thank you so much for having me speak today” and “what a great audience.” Develop Memorable Conclusions Conclusions should reinforce your image and message and include a call to action. People remember the first and last thing they hear so reinforce your message in your conclusion and leave on a strong note. What goes in a conclusion? Conclusions should not be any longer than your introduction. Summarize your three main points, take something from your introduction and make reference in your conclusion to bring your speech full circle. Never end with “okay, that’s it, we’re done” or ask “any questions?” Faith has a good suggestion to say “I have time for a couple questions and then I’m going to wrap it up.” That way you end with your note and message. Side note, make sure you do wrap it up in a timely manner and not continue on for another 20 minutes. How do you deliver a conclusion? The same way you do an introduction. Memorize it and deliver it with confidence and good eye-contact.

Audience Questions

Q. Is it best to take questions during your presentation or at the end? A. Faith said to do what works best for you there are no hard fast rules. If audience is big, you may want to wait until the end. Can you do so with getting sidetracked? You don’t want to answer so many questions that you ran out of time to finish your presentation. She suggested handing out 4 x 6 cards, have someone collect them and state that you will take time to answer questions throughout the day. Q. What can you do when a member of the audience is monopolizing your time with questions? A. Take back in control. The second the person takes a breath, interrupt and say that’s really interesting and you have a lot of great ideas. Validate what they are saying but ask them to write down their questions and see you on break. Then seek them out to answer them so as not to lose credibility. Q. What are some tips to overcoming fear and nerves? A. Faith suggested some great books:  Speaking Scared and Sounding Good by Peter Desberg and Overcoming Your Fear of Public Speaking – A Proven Method by Dr. Motley. Faith also suggested to be well prepared and practice a lot! Take your nervousness and harness the energy. Don’t let mental conversation in your head take control.

Prince - The man, the music. What you want to enjoy
What does Prince have to do with legal marketing? Keep reading, I promise to tie it all together … If you haven’t heard, Prince (the purple one himself) is hosting a 21-night stand of shows in Los Angeles. Ticket prices begin at $25 (with no fees). Each show has been unique, including special guests (Sheila E, Chaka Kahn and Stevie Wonder) and celebrities to wow the crowd (Halle Berry, Whitney Houston … before getting shipped off to rehab for erratic behaviors at Prince concerts last week). If you’re not in L.A., or don’t have friends in L.A. who are over 40, you probably haven’t heard much about it. Why?? Because Prince won’t go social. Prince has declared war on the Internet and taken down his website, and he’s hired a Web Sheriff to come after those daring to share the purple love. He goes after anyone and everyone who posts a video to YouTube. There is only a limited selection of his music on iTunes. And I am not even going to comment on choosing a location with the crappiest 3G access EVER. We had friends all over the arena and we couldn’t connect because we couldn’t get on Facebook.
Security going after the crowd - Not so enjoyable
To throw some salt on my wounds, at last night’s concert (my third attendance :)), security was all over the audience, forcing people to put away their iPhones and Blackberries, making people delete pictures and <<gasp>> videos. In this new social world, sharing our experience ENHANCES our experience. It’s also FREE marketing and advertising. I promise, if Prince had a Facebook page, he’d sell out each show. People would fly in from around the country to see him perform. But the tickets quietly go on sale, and through word of mouth, we local fans are spreading the word amongst ourselves. I can’t help but compare my experience seeing Prince with my favorite band, The Airborne Toxic Event, which actively uses social media to build and engage their fan base. Continue Reading In a socially connected world, Prince is not king

If you haven’t heard about Jonathan Fitzgarrald’s new blog, Bad for the Brand, check it out. This blog post, however, isn’t about Jonathan’s new blog, it’s about how you wear your personal and corporate brands, and the impact our every day actions have on them. Driving into work this morning I hit a bad traffic jam, and not in the usual traffic jam spots along my commute. It was bad. Dead stop. Watching the signals go green-yellow-red, and then green-yellow-red again with no movement type of bad. When I finally got to the source of the disruption, this is what I saw:

Seriously. In the middle of the morning rush hour traffic, this Alta Dena truck was parked perpendicular, sticking its caboose across two lanes of Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles. Not only was the traffic backed up several blocks on Olive Street, but the cross streets of 6th and 7th Streets were backing up as well. I don’t believe “Pure. Wholesome. Good.” Alta Dena wants to be known as “Self-Absorbed.” “Rude.” “A*******.” Which is what I was thinking as I snapped this picture this morning. Too bad Alta Dena doesn’t have a Facebook page, because I was ready to splash it on there. Which brings me to the “bad for the brand.” When you splash your brand across your truck, or license plate, or briefcase, you are representing your firm. If you park like this truck, cut people off while driving on the 405, or treat people rudely at Starbucks, it’s often times your firm or company that takes the hit, not the individual. When you are speaking at a conference, and come unprepared, most of the attendees won’t remember the person who spoke, but the company they were representing. When you are impatient when going through the metal detectors at a courthouse, perhaps sharing a few choice words with those making $12 an hour, you are representing your firm. When you are invited to a beauty contest for, let’s say “Levi’s” and show up wearing “Gap” jeans (not that this has ever happened 😀 to my knowledge), they won’t remember which associate did this … but they will remember the firm. In this day and age of social media, social networking, iPhones with cameras, Flip videos, it is important to remember that what we do is easily captured and shared with the world. There is no anonymity for a******s.

Mr. & Mrs. Geller
I’ve been really busy the past few weeks. There have been highlights (the Sports Dude and I got married), and low-lights (my nanny’s 17-year old granddaughter, Angel, passed away after a long illness). There was the sleepover at Sea World with the Girl Scout Troop. Laser tagging for my daughter’s birthday.
Prince at the Fabulous Forum
Prince has had a series of concerts in town (I’ve been to two, and planning on going again this Saturday night). Mother’s Day came and went. Oh, and did I mention my job?? We’re getting ready to launch a new blog next week. I have two partners on a road trip of seminars next week. And we’ll have a big announcement, you guessed it, next week. Through all the things I did, there was one thing I did not do. A friend’s daughter has Cystic Fibrosis. She has had a rough year, including 12 days in a coma where there did not seem to be a lot of hope. Claire woke up from her coma and went on trips to Hawai’i and Alaska. And, earlier this month, she had a Flash Mob in Santa Monica to raise money for CF. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naNELFDC2Zg] With Angel’s passing a couple week’s ago, there was a lot of talk in my house about “why?”

  • Why was this little girl born sick?
  • Why did she have to suffer?
  • Why did she have to die?

And then I listened to Claire’s message to us all (watch the embedded video), and I walked away with: “I don’t want to get stuck in the ‘why.’ It’s about the here and now.”

Girl Scout Sleepover in the Shark Encounter at Sea World
It’s about finding your joy and your purpose in life … no matter what’s thrown in your way. Claire is my hero. My purpose in life? To raise my girls to be incredible young women. To be honest in my actions, and happy in my spirit. To live a life with purpose and meaning. To embrace the love of those around me, and give it back 10-fold. To bring to this world my best, and take from it the least. To walk through tough and challenging times with dignity and grace. My joy? I find it in the simple things. A goofy smile from my child. A mother’s day breakfast in bed with homemade cards. Saying “I do” with tears of laughter streaming down my face. To quote Gwen Stefani:

And all I wanted was the simple things A simple kind of life

I don’t know about you, but I think we professionals (read “me”) get caught up in the muckity-muck of our lives. The things. The prestige. The salaries. We get to the point where our lives become too complicated for the simple things in life. Over the past five years or so, I’ve taken a journey backwards in so many ways. I’ve had to roll back my life to find out what’s really important to me, and make sure that it is first and foremost in my life every day. Our lives are too short to forget to have fun and enjoy. We can sit and wonder “Why?” until we are so depressed that we cannot get out of bed. Or, we can find joy in the moment we have right now, even if life sucks around us.

RIP. 1870-2011
Way back when I went off to college, my mother bought me a new dictionary, a new thesaurus and a brand new Brother electric typewriter. For you younger Gen-Xers, and Millennials, we didn’t go off to college with computers, laptops or iPads. We were happy to just have a typewriter with the auto-correct tape installed. Yes, personal computers were around in the mid-80s, especially at UCSD which I attended, but they appeared to be limited to the EECS-GEEKS. We writers still used paper and pen, and tapped-tapped-tapped out our 10-page papers, double-spaced, on electric typewrites, sometimes using carbon paper to make that extra copy. It wasn’t until my senior year that one of my roommates got a home computer that appeared to be the size of HAL. No one wanted to go near the thing. It was too imposing. I don’t know what became of my Brother typewriter after college. It followed me around for a few years, but soon gave way to my first home computer. But I became a bit nostalgic yesterday to read in the elevator that only 200 typewriters remain on the factory shelves, ready to be shipped out and sold. Production ended in 2009, but it has taken until now to sell off the stock. As I rode in the elevator, I was remembering the late nights spent typing out papers. My college boyfriend and I were both writers, and we would use that time to edit one another’s writing, to discuss the themes and characters of our papers. It’s a magical memory for me. Then the elevator doors opened, and I hopped into another elevator to make my way up to my office on the 47th floor, all the while checking my e-mail, accepting a couple new LinkedIn connections, and reading some comments on my Facebook page.  I grabbed a cup of coffee, fired up my two computers and my day was off and running. I used Open Table to make lunch reservations (no need to call around and find out if the restaurant had any openings). I listened to my favorite band‘s new album that I prepurchased and downloaded via iTunes. It had dropped that morning and was waiting for me when I synced my iPhone. While drinking my coffee, I checked the delivery status of my concert tickets for said band (turns out they’re on will-call). I caught a notice on Facebook that Prince (who has no website, but that’s for a different post) has another set of tickets going on sale this morning. I checked my bank statement after a long weekend away, and transferred money from one account to another. All of which took me a few minutes … and I never picked up the phone. During my day, I confirmed the details for a client dinner, e-mailed out logos for a conference we’re sponsoring, and reviewed the design for the firm’s newest blog. The only “blast from the past” I had was getting a fax. Probably the third fax I’ve received since starting at my firm in 2007. I signed it, scanned it, and emailed it back to the original sender. I completely understand the comfort and security of old technology, and the old way of doing things, and missing the pleasantness of this or that. But it’s really nice to be able to zip through my to do list with a smart phone while on an elevator, approve documents while standing in line at Disneyland with my kids, or troubleshoot a situation on the East Coast before I take a shower in the morning. I am sure that current technologies that we are marveling at will die off as well, replaced by something newer and more advanced, and we’ll feel nostalgic for those too. Will the laptop be replaced by the tablet? Proskauer Rose is issuing iPads to all of their attorneys. I believe the business card is in the midst of an evolutionary transition. QR codes are now being introduced on law firm business cards, but will they eventually lead to the demise of the brochure or the physical business card itself? Time will tell. As I ran out for lunch yesterday, I grabbed a couple business cards. This was my first time meeting with Faith Pincus live (we “met” when I live-Tweeted a webinar she was leading for Lexblog). While dining, we realized that exchanging business cards was not necessary. We already had one another’s contact information. We connected on LinkedIn immediately upon making our original connection. This experience is becoming more common for me. I’ll still carry business cards, but I rarely need to exchange them anymore. We can hold onto the old technologies. They are safe. But as the next generation graduates college and law school and join the ranks of the business world,  eventually become the hiring client, we — the legal services provider — need to meet them in their technology comfort zones. Things that marveled me as a youth are now so obsolete that my kids have no awareness of them at all. All of this became telling to me as I yelled to my daughter to grab her Walkman as we were rushing out of the house. With a bewildered look on her face she responded, “What’s a Walkman” <<sigh>> And just last week my 8-year old brought me a cassette tape that she found in the house. She was worried that it was something incredibly important, although she didn’t know what it was. For Judgment Day, we streamed Terminator via Wii and Netflix. My 11-year old shouted out: “Is that a Walkman?” while pointing at Sarah Connor’s roommate. And while I miss the MTV of my youth (when they actually played videos), YouTube allows me to share my favorite songs and videos. From The Airborne Toxic Event – Changing. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59bLUwYONEI]

In this new age of Twitter and LinkedIn, I’m wondering: Is the business card dead? When I think about it, I hardly ever carry a business card these days, and, when I do, it’s usually quite purposeful (I’m going to a conference and I need cards to win prizes in the exhibit hall). Usually, when I meet someone professionally, we pull out our smartphones and connect on LinkedIn, or follow one another on Twitter. And I am not alone in this experience. Jay Shepard (@Jayshep) writes about his recent experience at the ABA Techshow on Above the Law, Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Twitter and Business Cards at the ABA TechShow.

When these lawyers weren’t listening to the dozens of cutting-edge seminars or browsing the exhibitors’ booths, they were making new friends and new professional connections. But instead of exchanging business cards, many of the attendees were trading Twitter handles — their online identities that begin with the @ symbol. (I’m @jayshep.) Massachusetts lawyer Gabriel Cheong (@gabrielcheong) told me that by the end of the conference, he had collected exactly zero business cards. (I immediately gave him one of mine. #irony) Instead of accumulating two-by-three-and-a-half-inch scraps of cardstock, he typed their Twitter names directly into his iPhone. (And I doubt anyone actually said, “Uh, I’m not on the Twitter.”) Molly McDonough (@Molly_McDonough), online editor at the ABA Journal, tweeted at the end of the conference: “For first time, I didn’t collect any biz cards at #abatechshow. Just made note of names and followed on Twitter.” Others retweeted (quoted) her tweet with approval.

Ironically, Jay’s experience, and the experience of others at the ABA Techshow, is no different than what we’ve been experiencing on the marketing side of the industry. Jay:

People also used Twitter to arrange impromptu get-togethers in and around the conference. If you wanted to know where people were hanging out, a quick Twitter search told you.

This quote reminded me of a recent post by Lindsay Griffith’s (@lindsaygriffith), How I love Twitter, Let me Count the Ways. Lindsay:

Over the last three years, I’ve developed a network of LMA friends and colleagues through Twitter – our online conversations happen on a regular basis throughout the year, both about professional and personal topics …. As a result, we’re talking before the conference and making plans, we’re talking during the conference – about the sessions, about meeting for meals, about meeting those on Twitter we don’t know in person yet, about where we’re sitting, what we’re thinking, the questions we might have – and we’re talking after the conference – sharing posts, sharing articles, continuing the new and old relationships and friendships we’ve found in LMA.

Jay:

And most importantly, attendees began conversations with each other, many of which are likely to develop into relationships — as professional friendships, resources, or referral sources. Instead of ending up with a pile of business cards that end up in your desk drawer along with vague aspirations of “keeping in touch,” the Twitter connections directly start that process.

Lindsay:

Through Twitter, I’ve met marketing professionals at all different levels – some new to legal marketing, some with years of marketing experience – and they inspire me, introduce me to other people in the industry, help me on projects, ask and answer questions, and make me feel cherished and supported.

Jay:

This week in Chicago, I picked up about 50 new Twitter followers, and I began following about that many as well. And it’s not about keeping score; the point isn’t having a certain number of followers. It’s about making 50 new connections: new friends with whom I ate and drank and chatted, and new potential avenues for growing my business.

Lindsay:

So I’m grateful to Twitter for enriching my conference experience – I’ve gained professional colleagues (as someone who works alone most of the time, that is invaluable), but I’ve also gained lifelong friends. Some people may still not understand Twitter or think it valuable, but it can really enrich a conference experience, and make your membership in an organization incredibly worthwhile and rewarding.

Twitter, for me, is about identifying people in a crowded room that I want to talk to. I didn’t need to connect with 1000 legal marketing professionals last week … but I easily found the people I needed to meet, and they were usually broadcasting loud and clear via their social networks. I’ve broadened and deepened relationships I have identified on Twitter, by inviting many of these people into my inner-circle via my personal Facebook. I use the social media tools available to me to reach out and connect on a daily basis, either personally or professionally. I know to whom I can turn when I need to brainstorm an idea, get a referral, celebrate or commiserate. So, is the business card dead?? In it’s current incarnation, yes. I see the professional business card becoming a beacon to connect, a calling card inviting you to join the holders personal network. It won’t include a list of offices the holder has never visited (and that are constantly changing, and thereby requiring a new print job every few months), and the receiver doesn’t care about. But it will be personal to the user. In addition to the firm’s website and office location, it will include the user’s personal Twitter, LinkedIn, blog url, Facebook page (business or personal), email and phone number (cell phone, preferably, for texting).

For those who attended the Legal Marketing Association‘s annual conference in Orlando last week, it was an incredible few days of education, networking and camaraderie. Perhaps it was the location, or maybe there is truly a sense of “recovery” from the recession, but the mood was light, up beat, ENERGETIC. Many of us took to our Twitter accounts to document our experiences. You can still read those here. And then there were the LMA Bloggers. Here’s a quick recap of our posts to date.

Heather Morse, The Legal Watercooler

The Legal Watercooler – Heather Morse

Jonathan Fitzgarrald - Bad for the Brand

Bad for the Brand, Jonathan Fitzgarrald

Laura Gutierrez - Duets Blog

Duets Blog, Laura Gutierrez

The Hubbard Perspective, Hubbard One

Larry Bodine - LawMarketing Blog

LawMarketing Blog, Larry Bodine

Cheryl Bame - Legal PR Advice

Legal PR Advice, Cheryl Bame

Tom Matte - The Matte Pad

The Matte Pad, Tom Matte

Nancy Myrland - Myrland Marketing

Myrland Marketing, Nancy Myrland

Russell Lawson - Progressive Marketing Blog

Progressive Marketing Blog, Russell Lawson

Kevin O

Real Lawyers Have Blogs, Kevin O’Keefe

Lindsay Griffiths - Zen and the Art of Legal Networking

Zen & The Art of Legal Networks, Lindsay Griffiths

I promise, this is my last “the Disney Institute presentation by Jeff Williford at the LMA annual conference was so awesome” post. At Disney World/Disneyland, the #2 question asked is “What time does the 3 o’clock parade start?” It sounds like a silly question, until you think about the question behind the question. The question being asked is really:

  • “What time will the parade reach this point on the parade route?” or
  • “Do I have time to run my daughter to the bathroom before the Princesses arrive?” or
  • “Will my family make it across Main Street and reach me before they put the barriers up?”

By listening for the question behind the question, we can get to the true need of the client. And thereby get to a solution that actually meets their unspoken (business) concerns. It’s not “How much is this going to cost me per hour?” but “Will I be able to justify these costs to my CFO?” It’s not: “Do you offer alternative fee arrangements?” but “This is a huge risk for me … how can we ensure it’s a win-win for us all?” It’s not “What will it take to settle the case?” but “What can we do to keep this out of the press and from tanking our stock prices?” There’s always talk of the 80/20 rule, and it applies here as well. You should be listening 80% of the time and talking only 20% of the time. RESIST the urge to jump in and answer the question before it has been asked. Be QUICK to hold back your solutions until you have a true understanding of what is keeping the client up at 3:00 a.m. In fact, RESIST the urge to answer the question until you have determined what the “question behind the question” is.

Jeff Williford (courtesy of Lindsay Griffiths)
At the Disney Institute, presentation at LMA last week, Jeff Williford talked about creativity. It’s easy for us to point and say, “Well, of course everyone who works for Disney is creative.” However, Jeff challenged us to look at our own creativity. We’re all creative people … even the lawyers amongst us. Walt Disney once said:

Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination. But just as a muscle grows flabby with disuse so the bright imagination of a child pales in later years if he ceases to exercise it.

When we were little children, our parents could give us a box of 64 Crayola Crayons and a sheet of white paper, and we would create magic. A box of mismatched Legos would keep us entertained for hours. Somewhere along our paths, coloring books replaced those plain sheets of paper, and we were encouraged to “stay within the lines.” Legos were introduced in kits with full instructions on how to build a Millennium Falcon. Over time, as we started school, and began to grow up, our creative instincts were pushed aside. We started to fall in line, coloring in the lines, with all the other kids.

New and in the Box - going for $1500 on eBay
Jeff’s challenge to us last week to go to our next meeting and take notes with a crayon. I don’t know if I will go that far, but I hear what he is saying. We enter meetings with a fixed way of viewing the problem or challenge. We look to others in the room to validate us. We need to remove the lines, the borders, the proper order of things, and look to the endless possibilities available to us. If you think about it, we’re all being paid, from marketing director to lawyer, for our creativity:

  • How do we see the problem?
  • What are the solutions we can provide?
  • What are the steps we can take?

Our solutions might not be in 64 magical colors, but they certainly should not be limited to just black and white.

Another Legal Marketing Association annual conference has come and gone, and I can’t get the keynote speaker out of my head. Jeff Williford of the Disney Institute presented on Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence. For an indepth recap of Jeff’s presentation, read Lindsay Griffiths‘ Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence – An LMA Recap.

Jeff Williford - Courtesy of Lindsay Griffiths
While Disney is an entertainment brand, and, well, law firms are not, there are still many things we as an industry can learn and apply whether to our internal operations, or externally towards our clients. Disney is the overall brand, such as the law firm, but has many different moving parts from theme parks, to television channels, radio stations, toys … such as law firms have numerous practice groups and service lines. Disney identified a market that they weren’t serving (boys), so they went shopping and bought Marvel Comics … law firms can identify untapped needs of their clients and use lateral recruitment to service those needs. Disney was founded by a mouse, and our firms were founded by …. Do you even know the story of your firm? I find myself so lucky that our firm is just 35 years old. I enjoy talking to our founding partner, Richards Barger on a regular basis. Most of our current partnership have spent their entire careers here. Tapping into our history allows us to move forward with purpose. I have said it many times, I do not look for inspiration from within our industry. I like to look externally and see how we can apply best practices from other industries to our own. Disney is a great example. Their Chain of Excellence follows along these lines:

  • Leadership Excellence
    • The right leaders take care of cast (employees).
  • Cast Excellence
    • Casts take care of guests (clients).
  • Guest Satisfaction
    • They don’t have customers. Customers show up to complain. Guests are invited.
    • Do you treat your clients like customers or guests?
  • Financial Results/Repeat Business
    • Your experience at Disney is what brings you back.
    • What type of experience do your clients receive?

There is no doubt that Disney is a creative company. But not all creative companies succeed. What makes Disney special is that the leaders continually inspire the cast, the cast inspires the guests, the guests have magical moments, and continue to return (despite “not being the cheapest ticket” around). But, can this not be true for all companies, including law firms? I think it’s pretty easy to agree that leaders have to inspire, or they are not leading. They are pushing and prodding at that point, but they are definitely not leading. As legal marketers, we can look around and identify the leaders in our firms. And we can identify those who lack those skills, to say the least. None of us joined our law firm, whether as attorneys, legal marketers, assistants, etc. with an idea of dreading every moment of every day. Lawyers join the profession with idealistic thoughts of making a difference. As a legal marketer, we look to bring creativity and inspiration to our work. However, ideals and creativity can at times become wilted.

Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination. But just as a muscle grows flabby with disuse so the bright imagination of a child pales in later years if he ceases to exercise it. – Walt Disney

I admit it. There are times when I allow my inner creativity to wilt under the pressure of getting the job done. However, in everything we do, we have the opportunity to not just walk through the motions, but to open up a box of Crayola Crayons and get to work … drawing outside the lines. We are only limited by what we choose to limit ourselves by. For me, that hindrance is time, sometimes it’s my time, but, in many cases, it’s not wanting to “waste” a partner’s time. Time limits my creativity. I want to do and move on. Do and move on. But that is not a benefit to my firm, or to myself, in the long run. Rather than just plan the event, or launch a new initiative for the sake of “keeping up with the Lathams,” I need to think it through. To brainstorm. All ideas on the table. Egos checked at the door. Ideas belong to the group, not the individual. After a brainstorming session I am motivated. I am excited. I can feel the adrenalin. The only thing that stops me, however, is me. I get it my own way. But what happens when you don’t get that inspiration at work? I just got off the phone with a former colleague of mine. One thing that popped out of my mouth is that we need to find our creativity, and it’s not necessarily within the walls of our firm. Sometimes we need to look externally at what we can do. I volunteer with the Legal Marketing Association and I write this blog. Both of these activities inspire me. At my old firm, I was inspired by the local office administrator and would regularly visit her office for industry chats. There is no doubt that I walked away from this year’s LMA conference was a heightened sense of excitement and creativity. A new passion. It’s now the Monday after the conference and all I could think of this morning was how quickly can I get into my office today and start knocking things off my “to do” list. I chose instead to take a step back and capture a bit of that Disney magic before it all dissipates. I will then see if I can spread some of that enthusiasm through my firm. And where our clients are concerned, too many of our firms are attorney focused. It is a difficult, difficult cultural shift that needs to take place to make our industry a client focused one. Can it be done? I’m sure it can be, but it will happen one law firm at a time. And, I am inspired to think that it can begin with mine. Jeff closed by speaking of Disney’s Sustainable Competitive Advantage:

  • Identify an unworked trend
  • Being leaders
  • Word of Mouth – Referrals
  • Opportunity for customers to invest (ownership for Disney, but perhaps “shared risk” for law firms through alternative fee agreements)
  • Increase standards
  • Take care of the people

Broken down this way, a cultural shift sounds doable. One legal marketer at a time. One attorney at a time. One practice at a time. One firm at a time.